Forum Activity for @allehamm

allehamm
@allehamm
03/30/12 09:11:29AM
2 posts

Engaging and connecting people with disabilities in their communities


ABCD and Inclusive Communities/People with Disabilities

Hi Deb

Visit our website to see what we are doing in Kalamazoo MI - The Arcadia Institute

We recently had a forum that John McKnight was the guest presenter and facilitator. It was wonderful.

Allison Hammond

allehamm
@allehamm
12/07/11 01:06:45PM
2 posts

Welcoming Schools


ABCD and Education

Hopkins Public Schools in Michigan had a Welcoming Schools Initiative from 2001 to about 2008. The purpose of the Initiative was to reach out to the families with children zero to five years old. This is a very small rural school district and often families didn't have any contact with the school until the first day they sent their kindergarteners off to school. The district recognized that this was not how they wanted families to experience their first contact with schools. Also, many of these families did not have any idea what their children needed to be able to do to be successful in school.

In the initiative we did three important things:

We delivered a bag of books and other information to the home of every family that had a child 0 to five years old. This was not a home visit like the Parents as Teachers Program, but just a time for me to say hello and we are glad you are part of our school community.

We held kindergarten readiness events in the Fall and invited families who's children would be old enough for school the following year. This gave parents inportant school readiness information a whole year before their children started school rather than waiting until a typical kindergarten registration event in the Spring.

We held playgroups in neighborhoods in the district. Apartment complexes, mobile home neighborhoods and parks. This helped the parents learn about schools and helped them get to know each other.

Some comments we received were, "I didn't know the schools cared about my children." "I feel so much more comfortable about the first day of school." "I started reading to my child more and we even started teaching him about the calendar."

I started the initiative in 2001 and left Hopkins Public Schools in 2008 to start working for The Arcadia Institute Community Participation Initiative in Kalamazoo MI. I know that the Welcoming Schools Initiative did last at least 2 years after I left. I just looked at their website and don't see anything about it anymore. It's a shame - they list all of the technolgy equipment that they have, but no mention of reaching out to families anymore.

Allison Hammond

Community Participation Initiative Coordinator

The Arcadia Institute

Kalamazoo, MI

269-217-2205